Asus has now finally unveiled its flagship single-GPU Republic of Gamers (ROG) graphics card based on Nvidia's well known GM204 GPU, the Republic of Gamers (ROG) GTX 980 Matrix Platinum graphics card.

Although not officially launched and scheduled to appear in reviews as well as retail/e-tail shelves as of next week, Asus did show the new ROG flagship single-GPU graphics card and reveal more details. The new Asus ROG GTX 980 Matrix Platinum will join Asus' recently introduced GTX 980 Poseidon, a hybrid air+liquid cooling version, and the GTX 980 Strix OC graphics cards.

Based on a custom PCB with 14-phase Super Alloy Power VRM with Black Metallic capacitors and Asus Memory Defroster and Safe Mode extreme features, mostly aimed at those LN2 overclockers, the new Asus ROG GTX 980 Matrix Platinum will be heavily factory overclocked. Although it did not reveal the base GPU clock, Asus did reveal that the maximum GPU Boost clock will be set at 1342MHz, which is quite a high factory-overclock. The new Asus ROG GTX 980 Matrix Platinum will still pack 4GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at reference 7.0GHz.

The rest of the revealed features include the ROG color-coded load indicator, ROG Edition GPU Tweak, as well as a DirectCU II dual-fan cooler with CoolTech fan and 10mm matt-black heatpipes. It will also feature three DisplayPort, one HDMI and singe DVI display outputs.

Unfortuantely, Asus did not reveal any details regarding the price or the precise availability date by regions but we guess that we will know for sure next week, when it is expected to show up on retail/e-tail shelves.

Showcased back during Computex 2014 show in June, Asus has now officially launched the 27-inch Republic of Games Swift PG278Q gaming monitor with WQHD resolution, a 144Hz refresh rate and integrated Nvidia G-SYNC module.

The new Asus ROG Swift PG278Q 27-inch monitor packs a 2560x1440 panel, which adds up to a pixel density of 109 pixels per inch (PPI). It also offers 144Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time and also features a Turbo Key which allows you to set the refresh rate on-the-fly, switching between 60, 120 and 144Hz. It only features a DisplayPort 1.2 input for native WQHD support and features two USB 3.0 ports hub.

The biggest selling point of the Asus ROG Swift PG278Q monitor is the built-in Nvidia G-SYNC module which, when paired up with Nvidia Geforce GTX powered PC, will eliminate screen tearing and minimize display stutter and input lag. When showcased back in October last year, Nvidia's G-SYNC was quite impressive as it provided smoother gaming experience.

According to Asus, the ROG Swift PG278Q gaming monitor is now available in Taiwan, Asia Pacific and European markets, while China and North America markets should get it by the end of next month. The MSRP is set at US $799 but will vary depending on the region.

Asus' ROG Swift PG278Q will most likely the first available G-Sync enabled monitor in Europe as all other models from various other manufacturers are only listed for pre-order. The price for the ROG Swift PG278Q in Europe ranges from €730,43 to €819, depending on the retailer.

Asus kicked off its Computex 2014 appearance in Taipei with a storm of new products including notebooks, motherboards and gaming peripherals. A new graphics card got the most attention. The new Asus Republic of Gamers Ares III which was both teased on the show floor as well as online. The Asus ROG Ares III will be the newest limited edition graphics card from Asus which is based on two Hawaii XT GPUs, at least as far as we know so far.

Although Asus did not shed much details regarding the actual specifications of the upcoming Ares III graphics card, it did release a couple of pictures as well as note that this will be a Limited Edition graphics card with hand-picked R9 290X GPUs. Asus has also decided to change the AMD's reference closed-loop liquid cooler with the custom full-cover block from EK Water Blocks, a company with a good standing in the liquid cooling market. The block itself will feature hand-carved details making the upcoming ROG Ares III graphics card quite a unique and impressive looking graphics card.

As noted, Asus is still keeping all the juicy details under wraps but we did hear that there is a working sample at the show and that Asus might show it, so we might see a bit more information regarding it. According to Asus, the ROG Ares III is expected to launch in Q3 2014.

ASUS has announced a new 15.6-inch gaming laptop which will carry the Republic of Gamers badge and packs some serious power, with an Intel Core i7 mobile Haswell quad-core CPU and Nvidia Maxwell based GPU.

The ASUS Republic of Gamers G550JK gaming laptop features the RoG design with a matte black finish, accented with red details. There's an illuminated ROG logo on the lid and the laptop is 27mm thick, the new G550JK will be available with a choice of two different 15.6-inch panels, an AG IPS LED backlit Full HD 1920x1080 or an AG HD LED backlit 1366x768 resolution panel.

Power beast in 15.6-inch format

As noted, the ASUS ROG G550JK is based on Intel's mobile HM86 chipset and packs Intel Core i7-4700HQ mobile Haswell quad-core CPU, which features Hyper Threading and Intel Turbo Boost 2.0, has 6MB of L3 cache, 47W TDP and works at 2.4GHz base and 3.4GHz Turbo Boost clocks. The CPU can be paried with up to 16GB of DDR3 1600MHz memory.

ASUS also equipped the new ROG G550JK gaming notebook with Nvidia's Geforce GTX 850M Maxwell GPU which will be available with either 2 or 4GB of DDR3 memory depending on the SKU. Although there are quite a few different settings for the GTX 850M, it generally has 640 CUDA cores, works at 876MHz for the GPU and can outperform the Kepler based GTX 765M, despite having fewer CUDA cores. It packs a 128-bit memory interface and can be paired with either 5000MHz clocked GDDR5 memory, or, as in case of the G550JK notebook, DDR3 memory clocked at 2000MHz. It also supports Nvidia Battery Boost, GameStream, ShadowPlay, GPU Boost 2.0, Optimus, PhysX, CUDA, SLI and GeForce Experience.

Feature packed gaming lappie

As far as storage is concerned, the new ASUS ROG G550JK will be available with a couple of different configurations depending on the SKU and pack 2.5-inch SATA 1TB/1.5TB 5400rpm HDD, 2.5-inch 750GB/1TB 7200rpm HDD, single 2.5-inch 750GB SSH 5400rpm HDD or a 2.5-inch 256GB SSD. It also has a couple of ASUS exclusive features including ROG-exclusive ASUS TurboMaster technology with GPU Tweak software which allows the GTX 850M GPU to be overclocked when needed, ASUS SonicMaster Premium, incorporating ICEpower, Bang & Olufsen technology which should give it much better sound and ROG red illuminated chiclet keyboard.

It also comes with all the usual bells and whistles like the 802.11bgn or 802.11 agn WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet, three USB 3.0 ports, choice of Blu-ray DVD Combo, Super-Multi DVD or Blue-ray Writer for optical drive, 2-in-1 card reader, HD web camera as well as mini DisplayPort and HDMI otuputs. Unfortunately, battery details are not listed on ASUS' official website but we guess that it will be available with couple of different choices depending on the SKU.

Pricing and availability

Unfortunately, we could not find a single ASUS ROG G550JK SKU listed anywhere in Europe or the USA but hopefully this one will soon show up on retail/e-tail shelves. ASUS' announcement also did not shed any light on the price or the availability date.

Asus has announced yet another graphics card under its Republic of Gamers brand, the GTX 760 based Asus ROG GTX 760 Striker graphics card with 4GB of GDDR5 memory. To be available in Standard and Platinum versions, the ROG GTX 760 Striker is and will probably be the fastest GTX 760 on the market and features Asus' own new DirectCU II cooler, CoolTech fan, DIGI+ VRM as well a rather impressive factory overclock.

According to Asus, the new Republic of Gamers GTX 760 Striker Platinum graphics cards features cherry-picked GPUs ensuring that they can handle a rather impressive factory-overclock of 1085MHz for the base GPU and 1150MHz for the GPU Boost clock. The new DirectCU II cooler with two fans, one of which is CoolTech fan, should ensure that there is no throttling in any scenario. The Standard version of the ROG GTX 760 ended up at 980MHz base and 1033MHz GPU Boost clocks.

Based on Nvidia 28nm Kepler GK104 GPU, both versions of the ROG GTX 760 Striker pack 1152 CUDA cores, 96 TMUs and 32 ROPs, but unlike most GTX 760 on the market, also come with 4GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 6008MHz on both versions of the ROG GTX Striker graphics card.

In order to sweeten the deal, the ROG GTX 760 Striker graphics card also features the new ROG LED logo on top of the cooler which also doubles as the load indicator and should change shade depending on the actual load on the GPU. The Asus ROG GTX 760 Striker also comes with Asus' own GPU Tweak overclocking utility as well as the GPU Tweak Streaming tool.

According to Asus, the new ROG GTX 760 Striker should be available in retail/e-tail as of this month but it did not shed any light on the actual price of the new premium GTX 760.

Although Asus' ROG Poseidon GTX 780 was already teased earlier this month and even been reviewed by some sites around the net, Asus has just now officially announced its newest member of the Republic of Gamers lineup. Based on custom design and paired up with the new DirectCU H20 hybrid cooler, the new Asus ROG Poseidon is definitely one of the premium GTX 780 graphics cards on the market.

In case you missed it earlier, the Asus ROG Poseidon GTX 780 is based on Nvidia's GK110 GPU with 2304 CUDA cores and uses the new DirectCU H2O hybrid cooler, which is a standard dual-fan air cooler with heatpipes but also has an optional water inputs for water cooling. According to Asus, it should be up to 24°C cooler when compared to reference design when included in the water cooling loop and up to 7°C cooler when running on air.

Asus' new ROG Poseidon GTX 780 also features the DIGI+ VRM with black metallic capacitors as well as dust-proof fans, die-cast thermal armor and comes bundled with Asus' GPU Tweak. With stunning looks and LED backlit ROG logo. Although it was teased earlier, we now have the full specification and the GPU got overclocked to 1006MHz while 3GB of GDDR5 memory paired up with a 384-bit memory interface work at reference 6008MHz. According to Asus there is also plenty of additional overclocking headroom as well.

Unfortunately, Asus still did not shed any details regarding the price but it did note that the ROG Poseidon GTX 780 will start shipping worldwide during this month.

ASUS has launched a new member of the Mars lineup, under its Republic of Gamers brand and line of premium products, the ASUS ROG Mars 760. Although it is not the Mars everyone expected, the new ROG Mars 760 still packs enough punch to be faster than the mighty Nvidia GTX Titan.

Based on two GK 104 GPUs with 1152 CUDA cores per GPU for a total of 2304, the new ROG Mars 760 is basically an GTX 760 SLI setup done on a single PCB. These specifications, paired up with the fact that both GPUs are clocked at 1006MHz base and 1072MHz Boost GPU clocks, 4GB of GDDR5 memory (2GB per GPU) clocked at 6000MHz and dual 256-bit memory interface, were enough to make it faster than the GTX Titan and in some cases even faster than the GTX 780 Ti. The GPUs are interconnected via the PLX PEX8747 PCI-Express 3.0 bridge.

With an impressive 12-phase DIGI+ VRM, Super Allow Power components and (Nichicon GT-series) Black Metallic Caps, the new ROG Mars 760 will also offer good stability as well as an enhanced OC potential. The new ROG Mars 760 is paired up with a dual-slot DirectCU II cooler with two separate heatsinks (one for each GPU), two fans which should keep it well cooled even under load and glowing MARS LED logo.

It supports SLI, in case you want to run a pair for Quad-SLI configuration, has two dual-link DVI-I outputs, one dual-link DVI-D output, one Mini DisplayPort output and HDMI output via dongle.

According to ASUS, and unlike previous ROG Mars products, the Mars 760 will not be a limited run 1000-pieces piece of hardware, but rather a normal graphics card aiming to bring Mars down to a much reasonable levels when it comes to price and affordability. Unfortunately, ASUS still did not release any details regarding the actual price or the availability date.

Asus appears to be getting ready to release their first storage device, a PCIe storage card that will be a part of the Republic of Gamers line of products.

Based on dual LSI Sandforce SF-2281 controllers paired up with Toshiba's 19nm 16K page size MLC synchronous NAND flash chips, the new Asus Raidr will offer some impressive sequential read and write performance of up to 830MB/s and 810MB/s with 4K read and write both set at 100k IOPS. Since we are talking about PCIe-based SSD it of course features the PCI-Express 2.0 x2 interface.

The Raidr will be available in 120 and 240GB capacities for starters and while the 240GB one offers the aforementioned transfer speeds, the 120GB one is slightly "slower" at 765MB/s read and 775MB/s write. The Raidr comes with support for TRIM, has 128-bit AES data encryption support while the load and idle power consumption is at 16 and 7 Watts.

Ocaholic.ch did a nice photo-shoot session with the new Asus ROG Raird which you can find here.

Asus decided that CES 2013 is a perfect time to launch a new graphics card in its Republic of Gamers line of products, the ROG Ares II. Based on two HD 7970 GHz Edition GPUs and paired up with a dual water+air cooling, the Ares II features an impressive design and will certainly justify the premium ROG moniker.

Similar to the Ares I, which was based on two HD 5870 GPUs and the Nvidia equipped Mars (like the Mars II with two GTX 580 GPUs), the Ares II also features two factory overclocked HD 7970 GHz Edition GPUs for a total of 4096 stream processors (2048 per GPU). The new Ares II graphics card is pretty much what we have already seen from Powercolor and their Devil13 card, but with twist in the cooling department.

The new Ares II ended up working at 1050MHz for the GPU and 6.6GHz for 6GB (3GB per GPU) of GDDR5 memory. It requires three 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors and with 75W from the PCI-Express slot the total maximum power ends up at 525W. Asus opted for a 20-phase VRM that deals with the GPU and memory.

The cooling system on the new Ares II is something that we have not seen so far as it combines a closed-loop water cooling system with 120mm radiator and two push-pull fans with a standard 80mm air cooling on the card itself. Judging by the looks of it, the cooler on the graphics card will probably deal with the VRM and memory, while the water cooler will handle the GPUs.

As it was the case with previous Asus ROG graphics cards, the Ares II will also be a limited edition product with a total of 1,000 cards. The price or the actual release date have not been announced but it will not be cheap, that is sure.

In addition to the monstrosity with two GK104 GPUs, called the Asus ROG Mars III, Asus has also showcased a custom, factory overclocked, Asus Republic of Gamers Radeon HD 7970 Matrix graphics card.

Although the precise clocks were not disclosed by Asus, they did state that the new ROG HD 7970 Matrix will feature a factory overclock of at least 25 percent. Asus also detailed some of the exclusive features as VGA Hotwire that allows voltage monitoring and control at hardware level, TweakIT that is hardware voltage-speed control using buttons with one-push fan override, ProbeIT, a voltage fan-speed monitoring points and 20-phase Digi+ VRM that can be controlled via GPUTweak software and offer additional stability for extreme overclocking.

The new ROG HD 7970 Matrix draws power from two 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors, has two BIOS ROMs and is cooled by a dual 120mm fan, triple-slot cooler. It has two DVI and four DisplayPort outputs that will be able to drive a 6-display Eyefinity setup on a single graphics card.

Unfortunately, the precise details are still unknown so we will have to wait a bit longer, at least until Asus decides to talk about it officially.